Random Updates

• A quick trip to Vegas (my first! and probably only!) followed by a 10K are all that separate me from my two weeks of rest.  And I can not wait.
• But I will still have to go to the gym and pretend to work out.  In order to see my gym/church boyfriend.
• Speaking of which, I think I led him to believe that I run 20 min/miles.  I'm slow but not that slow.  But when I tried to explain I started to sound defensive.  So I let it go.
• Next time I see him I'm going to ask him his name.  Or should I first tell him my name?  How does that go?
• Also, what do you call the person who collects the money in church?  Because he did that this weekend and almost touched my boob with the collection basket.  I might bring this up as well.  The fact that he was in church and served as the [money collector?].  Not that he almost touched my boob.
• It is finally getting cold out.  Which is good because I have so much skiing planned this year. But bad because I might have to turn on the heat in my apartment.  I made it through November and was going to try for December with no heat. But right now my hands are numb from the cold.
• I am so tired and hungry that I wonder (again) if I have a thyroid issued.  But I'm always accused of having one (an issue stemming from the thyroid) and never actually found to have one.  So I should probably just eat a cheeseburger.  Except the NYT scared me away from ground beef.  Another reason to hate the NYT.
• Goodnight.  

In the Name of Love

The first time I noticed him he was talking to a guy in the gym and querying when his expecting wife was due. It was appealing in a someday sort of a way. As in someday, I hope that my husband goes to the gym. And I hope that he is friendly with the other guys at the gym and remembers if their wives are pregnant and queries as to their well being.

The next time I saw him we shared an elevator with two other people. He was wearing scrubs and explaining his job selling medical devices to his neighbors. And, particularly because their questions were annoying, he seemed nice. I added that to the someday list: gym, friendly, nice.

I assumed, for whatever reason, that he had a wife (probably because of all those someday characteristics), but the third time I saw him was in church. And he was alone. And the wheels started spinning.

Following that there was one random elevator conversation (about running) and some cyber stalking on my part.

And then, the fourth time I saw him, it was love. It was love because in addition to being a gym going, friendly nice guy that goes to church (alone and doesn't wear a wedding ring so might be single), he roots for my college's football team.

Since it was love, when I saw him in the gym on my way home from work tonight, I had to make an appearance. So I put on my cutest gym clothes (and some lip gloss) and went to the gym. The problem was that the plan called for a bike (which I wanted to do on the trainer while I watched house) and a swim (which I never really intended to do) so I decided on an upper body/core workout. I think it was a good choice because I caught him looking at me while I did sit ups and I'm sure he was impressed with my push ups (he spent some time in the armed forces). Despite him being on the treadmill we commented on last week's game and the likelihood that my team will get a new coach.

I timed it so that we'd leave together and we talked more. About football. And he still doesn't know my name. And he might have a girlfriend. But I'm pretty sure its love and he's the one. I'll keep you posted. Hopefully I'll be lifting weights in the name of love again sooner rather than later, because I'm ready for someday.

T-Man Race Report (FINALLY)

So, I'm only 2.5 months late on this one ... there is so much other fun stuff to blog about that I finally decided to just get this out of the way.

The Days Before

I left work early the Friday before the race and embarked on my solo journey to NH.  Packing had been quite an adventure because I was headed for a week long vacation immediately following the race.  As was typical for my summer, as soon as I started out on the drive it started torrentially raining and I needed gas before I left NJ (no self pumping for me) so I was forced to deal with getting gas in the torrential rain - which in and of itself isn't that bad, but I also needed snacks and water.  Anyway, the attendant had a million questions for me about my braces and how much they were and weather they were covered by insurance because his wife apparently had bad teeth that needed to get fixed.

I didn't think that excessive conversation with the gas station attendant necessarily boded well for my trip but a few hours later I saw the most stunning rainbow which I figured did bode well - or at least well enough to negate the gas station attendant.  It took close to 8 hours but I made it to NH where Marty was waiting for me in our SPACIOUS (seriously, huge) room.  We made a plan for the morning and headed to bed.

In the morning we swam and I felt good - the water was warm and clear and we got out and were drying off to bike when I bee started buzzing around me.  I tried to shoo it away and then I tried to run away from it and then I ran into the water because it would not leave me alone.  It continued to fly around my head but eventually seemed to loose interest.  Or not.  Because as soon as I got out of the water it came right back and actually stung me through my bike shorts!  Bastard.  Finally Marty had to gather up my stuff and I sprinted out of the water towards our bikes finally eluding the bee.

After the bee incident we biked the run, got lost driving the bike course and spent most of the rest of the day doing normal pre race stuff.  After dinner we got ready for bed and even though it made me slightly nervous I took an actifed (which had no adverse effects) and slept like a baby.  

The morning started off smoothly until we hit traffic a mile from the race and couldn't get in to onsite parking.  Marty had an earlier wave and was getting nervous so I finally kicked her out of the car and headed to park on my own.  I would have been cutting it super close but the whole race was delayed because of a car accident on the bike course so as it was I had plenty of time to get ready and go for a nice swim warm up.

Swim - 39:38

Awesome is really the only way to describe this.  I just felt great, I drafted, I swam hard I got out of the water and saw that there was still a chance of going sub 40 and basically took a girl out crossing the line.  Strangely, I think this girl was Marty's friend.  Fortunately she survived my brute force;)

T1 - 3:37

Wet suit strippers rock.  I got in and out of transition as quickly as I could - making sure to put on my multi sport mastery socks and headed out on the bike ride.

Bike - 3:40:25

Someday I will go sub 3:40 on a 70.3 bike.  Due to our failure to read a map well enough to drive the course, the hilliness of this course caught my by surprise. It was no Rev3, but it was also far, far from flat.  My way of getting through these bikes is generally to keep the computer on cadence and time and to check my progress at one hour and then every 30-45 mins thereafter.  This worked well through 3 hours and 3 gatorade bottles but then sort of backfired.  At 3 hours I knew I was close to being done (relatively) and never started the fourth gatorade bottle (which also had my salt tabs mixed into it).  I just kept thinking I was "almost there" and add to that some stomach queeziness, I had no desire to shuffle around my bottles to get more gatorade.  The last 20 minutes of the bike seemed never ending and I couldn't have been happier to arrive in ...

T2 - 3:26

In and out as fast as I could.  I stopped for sunscreen and was careful to make sure that I had everything I needed.

Run - 2:26:19

And this is when the missing gatorade comes back to kick me in the ass - or legs as the case may be.  The run at this race is fun (except for the part where you have to run right past the finish line before running an additional 6.6 miles) - its a double out and back with awesome local fans.  I started off WAY TOO fast and soon realized me legs were on the verge of cramping.  I basically binged on salt tabs for the first 3 miles and managed to survive but it was close.  I manage to run the whole way (except for water stops and one steep hill) which was a huge goal but next time I will start off super slow and aim for a negative split.  I kept a close eye on the time to make sure that sub 7 hours didn't slip away - I knew the key to that was to avoid things that might make it hard to start running again.  Like walking and porta pottying.  With 2 miles left the guy I had been playing cat and mouse with all run totally cramped up and became that guy sitting on the side of the road unable to move.  I wanted to avoid that fate so I didn't stop for any reason until I hit the finish line in 6:53!!

For the last few miles of the race I really had to pee but didn't want to stop and no matter how hard I tried could not pee while running.  When I finally finished I was sooooo hot and nauseous that a porta potty would not have worked so bee lined straight to the lake where I managed to cool off and finally pee.  The lake was full of race finishers though so I decided not to go under since I was likely swimming in a bunch of gatoradey pee.  Gross.

I felt like death for a good hour or so after the race but eventually recovered enough to be super pleased with my sub 7 performance (guess the chatty gas station attendant wasn't a bad omen after all).  And super happy to have a week at the beach to celebrate.